Mezirow, Jack. (1990). In J. Mezirow & associates (Eds.), Fostering critical reflection in adulthood: A guide to transformative and emancipatory learning (pp. 1-20). San Francisco & Oxford: Jossey-Basse.
Mezirow argued that central to adult education is reflecting upon prior learning to determine its validity against present circumstances. He called this critical assessment of assumptions critical reflection, which bases reflective action. He stated, "the most significant learning experiences in adulthood involve critical self-reflection--reassessing the way we have posed problems and reassessing our own orientation to perceiving, knowing, believing, feeling, and acting" (p. 13).
In this light, he classified two distinctive learning paths: instrumental learning and communicative learning. Instrumental learning occurs while involved in task-oriented problem solving. In the process, Mezirow asserted, "reflection is significantly involved when we look back on content or procedural [sic] assumptions guiding the problem-solving process to reassess the efficacy of the strategies and tactics used." (p. 7) It also involves "the process of learning to control and manipulate the environment or other people," thus the results can be empirically demonstrated. (p. 8). On the other hand, communicative learning involves understanding the meaning of others' values, feelings, decisions, and such abstract concepts of justice, love, democracy and commitment. Mezirow emphasized that this learning has even greater significance in adult learning. It focuses on achieving coherence rather than exercising more effective control. It is like a "building block of understanding" (p. 9) by integrating further insights, which involves "hermeneutic circle," which move back and forth between parts and a whole of what we seek to understand. Thus, reflection in this learning ensures identifying similarities and unfamiliarities in order to give them coherence.
Precisely, Mezirow defined as critical reflection "challenging the validity of presuppositions in prior learning" (p. 12). He argued that although critical reflection may be an integral part of making decision, it cannot be an integral element in the immediate action process. He contended that this transition requires transforming their own perspectives. He argued that perspective transformation occurs in response to "disorienting dilemma"(p. 13): a divorce, death of a loved one, job change, an eye-opening discussion, book, culture shock, etc. He put it:
"Anomalies and dilemmas of which old ways of knowing cannot make sense become catalysts or "trigger events" that precipitate critical reflection and transformation." (p. 14)
Mezirow pointed out psychic distortions as something that hinders adults from learning: unwarranted anxiety that impedes taking actions, which resulted from traumatic events in childhood (Roger Gould, 1978, transformation: Growth and change in adult life). Mezirow wrote, "Adulthood is a time of regaining such lost functions. The learner must be helped to identify both the particular action that he or she feels blocked about taking and the source and nature of stress in making a decision to act" (p. 17). In this light, educators "can provide skillful emotional support and collaborate as co-learners in an educational context" (p. 17).
Mezirow defined as transformative learning the process of learning through critical reflection via either instrumental or communicative learning, and acting on the learned insights derived from transformation of their perspectives. Emancipatory education is "an organized effort to help the learner challenge presuppositions, explore alternative perspectives, transform old ways of understanding, and act on new perspective" (p. 18).
Looking at educational approaches, Mezirow asserted that they are adaptable as research methods for study the nature, significance, and changes in perspectives. He wrote:
"In transformative learning, the line between learning, education, and research often becomes mercifully blurred. The educator becomes a co-learner, helping the learner explore alternative ways of interpreting his or her experience." (p. xix-x, Preface)
Showing posts with label adult. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adult. Show all posts
Friday, November 5, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The search for a separate theory of adult learning
: Does anyone really need andragogy? Hanson, Ann. (1996). Boundaries of adult learning (pp. 99-108)
Hanson pointed out the self-conflict of Knowles's andragogy: while it demonstrates "a strong humanistic and individualistic commitment," it simultaneously may dehumanize children (p. 100). For Hanson, the distinction between pedagogy and andragogy is artificial, for the rationale for andragogy is also relevant to pedagogy. More, andragogy is problematic, she argued: it effectively moved the issues of knowledge, power and control. Centered on autonomous, self-directed learners, andragogy obscure the system of their learning as a social, cultural and political construct. Hanson wrote: "Theories of adult learning which do not take account of culture and power do adults little service, even if they aim to produce self-directed learners." (p. 101) [WHY? she doesn't explain]
More critically, Hanson argued that the goal of self-direction, a western value presented as universal, left unexamined. Even critical self-reflection is not always beneficial, for they are characteristics of seriously depressed people, she argued.
In contrast, Hanson called for reflective learning, in which learners "reflect critically on a situation or piece of knowledge, to understand its meaning, to be able to incorporate the new concept into their own understandings sufficiently to transform perspectives." (p. 106) To do so, Hanson emphasize contextualizing learning within questions of culture and power.
[Why do learners need to transform their perspectives? Does this author say anything about it?]
Hanson pointed out the self-conflict of Knowles's andragogy: while it demonstrates "a strong humanistic and individualistic commitment," it simultaneously may dehumanize children (p. 100). For Hanson, the distinction between pedagogy and andragogy is artificial, for the rationale for andragogy is also relevant to pedagogy. More, andragogy is problematic, she argued: it effectively moved the issues of knowledge, power and control. Centered on autonomous, self-directed learners, andragogy obscure the system of their learning as a social, cultural and political construct. Hanson wrote: "Theories of adult learning which do not take account of culture and power do adults little service, even if they aim to produce self-directed learners." (p. 101) [WHY? she doesn't explain]
More critically, Hanson argued that the goal of self-direction, a western value presented as universal, left unexamined. Even critical self-reflection is not always beneficial, for they are characteristics of seriously depressed people, she argued.
In contrast, Hanson called for reflective learning, in which learners "reflect critically on a situation or piece of knowledge, to understand its meaning, to be able to incorporate the new concept into their own understandings sufficiently to transform perspectives." (p. 106) To do so, Hanson emphasize contextualizing learning within questions of culture and power.
[Why do learners need to transform their perspectives? Does this author say anything about it?]
Andragogy
: An emerging technology for adult learning. Knowles, Malcolm. (1996). In Richard Edwards, Ann Hanson, & Peter Raggatt (Eds.), Boundaries of adult learning (pp. 82-98). This edited chapter originally appeared in M. Tight (Ed.), Adult learning and education, London: Croom Helm, 1983. Original first published in 1970.
Knowles proposed the term andragogy to better formulate technology for adult education as opposed to pedagogy. He argued pedagogy means, specifically, the art and science of teaching children; andragogy means adult learning. At the heart of angragogy, he contented, lies the principle of ego-involvement. He put it:
"The important implication for adult education practice of the fact that learning is an internal process is that those methods and techniques which involve the individual most deeply in self-directed inquiry will produce the greatest learning. This principle of ego-involvement lies at the heart of the adult educator's art. In fact, the main thrust of modern adult educational technology is in the direction of inventing techniques for involving adults in ever deeper processes of self-diagnosis of their own needs for continued learning, in formulating their own objectives for learning, in sharing responsibility for designing and carrying out their learning activities, and in evaluating their progress toward their objectives." (p. 96)
Centered on the view on individuals as autonomous and self-directed entities (Ann Hanson, 1996), Knowles proposed four assumptions.
1. Self-concept=self-directivity
Adults see themselves as a self-directing producer or doer. Thus, adult should be treated with respect, be involved in mutual inquiry with the teacher, and are given responsibility of their learning. To do so, Knowles proposed students' participation in planning their learning. He stated:
"Every individual tends to feel committed to a decision (or an activity) to the extent that he has participated in making it (or planning it). Teachers of adults who do all the planning for their students, who come into the classroom and impose preplanned activities on them, typically experience apathy, resentment, and probably withdrawal. For this imposition of the will of the teacher is incongruent with the adults' self-concept of self-directivity. [To an extent, it is true to education for children.]
Accordingly, a basic element in the technology of andragogy is the involvement of the learners in the process of planning their own learning, with the teacher serving as a procedural guide and content resource." (p. 87)
Thus, Knowles wrote, "The teacher's role is redefined as that of a procedural technician, resource person, and co-inquirer; he is more a catalyst than an instructor, more a guide than a wizard." (p. 88) [It is not irrelevant in participatory environment. Yet, the teacher's role should not be diminished to a catalyst. As Gramsci mentioned, teachers as organic intellectuals should be directive. In a sense, they cannot be indirective, as they bring their own socioeconomic and cultural background.]
2. Experience
Emphasizing adults' experience, Knowles stated, "An adult is [sic] what he has done [sic]" (p. 89). According to Knowles, adults are distinct from children in that they have more and different kinds of experience; adult education, therefore, should respect their experience and built upon it. In this regard, he wrote: "Adults have acquired a larger number of fixed habits and patterns of thought, and therefore tend to be less open-minded" (p. 90). [I do not agree on this]
Therefore, Knowles emphasized participatory experiential techniques, writing: "Indeed, 'participation' and 'ego-involvement' are boldfaced words in the lexicon of the adult education, with the assumption often being made that the more active the learner's role in the process, the more he is probably learning." (p. 90)
3. Adults' readiness to learn is parallel to their social roles.
4. Adults' orientation toward learning is more on problem-centeredness.
Knowles defined as the central dynamic of learning the learner's experience of interacting between him or her as an individual and the environment. Thus, the critical function of the teacher is "to create a rich environment from which students can extract learning and then to guide their interaction with it so as to maximize their learning from it" (p. 96)
[Does Knowles indicate any concrete adults or general adults? Do all the adults involve in their learning in the same way? Here, there is only abstract adults, which is critical oversight.]
Knowles proposed the term andragogy to better formulate technology for adult education as opposed to pedagogy. He argued pedagogy means, specifically, the art and science of teaching children; andragogy means adult learning. At the heart of angragogy, he contented, lies the principle of ego-involvement. He put it:
"The important implication for adult education practice of the fact that learning is an internal process is that those methods and techniques which involve the individual most deeply in self-directed inquiry will produce the greatest learning. This principle of ego-involvement lies at the heart of the adult educator's art. In fact, the main thrust of modern adult educational technology is in the direction of inventing techniques for involving adults in ever deeper processes of self-diagnosis of their own needs for continued learning, in formulating their own objectives for learning, in sharing responsibility for designing and carrying out their learning activities, and in evaluating their progress toward their objectives." (p. 96)
Centered on the view on individuals as autonomous and self-directed entities (Ann Hanson, 1996), Knowles proposed four assumptions.
1. Self-concept=self-directivity
Adults see themselves as a self-directing producer or doer. Thus, adult should be treated with respect, be involved in mutual inquiry with the teacher, and are given responsibility of their learning. To do so, Knowles proposed students' participation in planning their learning. He stated:
"Every individual tends to feel committed to a decision (or an activity) to the extent that he has participated in making it (or planning it). Teachers of adults who do all the planning for their students, who come into the classroom and impose preplanned activities on them, typically experience apathy, resentment, and probably withdrawal. For this imposition of the will of the teacher is incongruent with the adults' self-concept of self-directivity. [To an extent, it is true to education for children.]
Accordingly, a basic element in the technology of andragogy is the involvement of the learners in the process of planning their own learning, with the teacher serving as a procedural guide and content resource." (p. 87)
Thus, Knowles wrote, "The teacher's role is redefined as that of a procedural technician, resource person, and co-inquirer; he is more a catalyst than an instructor, more a guide than a wizard." (p. 88) [It is not irrelevant in participatory environment. Yet, the teacher's role should not be diminished to a catalyst. As Gramsci mentioned, teachers as organic intellectuals should be directive. In a sense, they cannot be indirective, as they bring their own socioeconomic and cultural background.]
2. Experience
Emphasizing adults' experience, Knowles stated, "An adult is [sic] what he has done [sic]" (p. 89). According to Knowles, adults are distinct from children in that they have more and different kinds of experience; adult education, therefore, should respect their experience and built upon it. In this regard, he wrote: "Adults have acquired a larger number of fixed habits and patterns of thought, and therefore tend to be less open-minded" (p. 90). [I do not agree on this]
Therefore, Knowles emphasized participatory experiential techniques, writing: "Indeed, 'participation' and 'ego-involvement' are boldfaced words in the lexicon of the adult education, with the assumption often being made that the more active the learner's role in the process, the more he is probably learning." (p. 90)
3. Adults' readiness to learn is parallel to their social roles.
4. Adults' orientation toward learning is more on problem-centeredness.
Knowles defined as the central dynamic of learning the learner's experience of interacting between him or her as an individual and the environment. Thus, the critical function of the teacher is "to create a rich environment from which students can extract learning and then to guide their interaction with it so as to maximize their learning from it" (p. 96)
[Does Knowles indicate any concrete adults or general adults? Do all the adults involve in their learning in the same way? Here, there is only abstract adults, which is critical oversight.]
Learning in Social Action
: A contribution to understanding informal education. Foley, Griff. (1999). London and New York: Zed Books.
Introduction (pp. 1-13)
Foley argued that the most powerful learning occurs when people struggle again oppression and understand the circumstances they encounter; this learning often occurs informally and "incidentally" such that people does not recognizing it as learning. In addition, against cultural approach to radical adult education, Foley stresses material analyses of learning, contending that capitalism must lie at the heart of emancipatory adult education theory and practice. Finally, Foley noted that incidental learning in the process of emancipatory struggle is also ambiguous, complex and even contradictory, which is one of the foci he drew attention to.
Ideology, Discourse and Learning (pp. 14-26)
"The unlearning of dominant, oppressive ideologies and discourses and the learning of insurgent, emancipatory ones are central to processes of emancipatory change. But these processes of emancipatory learning and action are not straightforward; they are complex, ambiguous, contradictory." (p. 16)
Introduction (pp. 1-13)
Foley argued that the most powerful learning occurs when people struggle again oppression and understand the circumstances they encounter; this learning often occurs informally and "incidentally" such that people does not recognizing it as learning. In addition, against cultural approach to radical adult education, Foley stresses material analyses of learning, contending that capitalism must lie at the heart of emancipatory adult education theory and practice. Finally, Foley noted that incidental learning in the process of emancipatory struggle is also ambiguous, complex and even contradictory, which is one of the foci he drew attention to.
Ideology, Discourse and Learning (pp. 14-26)
"The unlearning of dominant, oppressive ideologies and discourses and the learning of insurgent, emancipatory ones are central to processes of emancipatory change. But these processes of emancipatory learning and action are not straightforward; they are complex, ambiguous, contradictory." (p. 16)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Radical adult education and learning
Griff Foley. (2001). International Journal of Lifelong Education, 20 (1/2), 71-88.
"Radical adult educators are those who work for emancipatory social change and whose work engages with the learning dimension of social life." (p. 72)
Foley acknowledged the democratic imperatives of Carl Rogers's approach to humanistic education, in which meaningful experiential learning was emphasized; yet, Rogers, unlike critical and radical educators, ignored social analysis and political commitment. More, Foley finds the root of the confusion in defining power in Rogers's approach to non-directive teaching. In Foley's definition, empowerment in education takes place when educators use their power to create educational situation in which learners can exercise power. For him, it is neither something that educators can do for the learners nor something that can be obtained by abandoning the educator's power. Foley suggests the educator's active role in empowering the learners. In this regard, he put it:
This will involve educators in recognizing the invasiveness of their work and struggling with learners to build a different sort of relationship, one that is based on a notion of solidarity rather than on a patronizing notion of service. (p. 75)
In an triumphal capitalism, Foley argued, radical adult education needs to be more strategic. One of the strategies is the action research method. He said that it is "ordinary yet radical... because it uncovers, and acts on, what is generally hidden and untouched. (pp. 82-83)
"We learn as we act, and our learning is both tacit and explicit" (p. 86). Foley emphasizes the understanding of the complex learning process that takes place in places where we work and live. [How is this statement related to the participatory research?]
"Radical adult educators are those who work for emancipatory social change and whose work engages with the learning dimension of social life." (p. 72)
Foley acknowledged the democratic imperatives of Carl Rogers's approach to humanistic education, in which meaningful experiential learning was emphasized; yet, Rogers, unlike critical and radical educators, ignored social analysis and political commitment. More, Foley finds the root of the confusion in defining power in Rogers's approach to non-directive teaching. In Foley's definition, empowerment in education takes place when educators use their power to create educational situation in which learners can exercise power. For him, it is neither something that educators can do for the learners nor something that can be obtained by abandoning the educator's power. Foley suggests the educator's active role in empowering the learners. In this regard, he put it:
This will involve educators in recognizing the invasiveness of their work and struggling with learners to build a different sort of relationship, one that is based on a notion of solidarity rather than on a patronizing notion of service. (p. 75)
In an triumphal capitalism, Foley argued, radical adult education needs to be more strategic. One of the strategies is the action research method. He said that it is "ordinary yet radical... because it uncovers, and acts on, what is generally hidden and untouched. (pp. 82-83)
"We learn as we act, and our learning is both tacit and explicit" (p. 86). Foley emphasizes the understanding of the complex learning process that takes place in places where we work and live. [How is this statement related to the participatory research?]
Power in practice
: adult education and the struggle for knowledge and power in society. Ronald Cervero & Arther Wilson (Eds.). (2001). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Preface (xv-xxi)
The authors pointed out that the literature of adult education lacked an examination of power relations manifested in adult education, although adults became more engaged in learning activity and the issues of knowledge and power are pervasive. Within this context, they ask, "who benefits from and who should benefit from the programs, practices, and policies of adult education?" (p. xv)
The authors empathized that adult education is concerned not only about knowledge distribution but also social, cultural, and economic power, which they called 'material effects' (p. 2). Holding this position, they reviewed three different conceptions of the political in adult education practice:
1) "The political is personal" (articulated by Freire's partner, Knowles's andragogue, Mezirow's emancipatory educator, Daloz's mentor, Belenky's mid-wife, and Brookfield's skillful teacher): the authors critiqued this learner-centered view romanticizes learners. In this view, they argued, "the highest professional and moral principle for adult educators, then, to involve learners in identifying their needs" (p. 5). They further described:
"Key metaphors are those of building on the experience of these potential adult learners; hearing their "voice", which has often been silenced; or giving them access to learning opportunities that historically have been denied" (p. 5)
The authors argued that lack of social structural reference in this view only addressed universal purposes and failed to approach the political in the context of adult education.
2) "The political is practical": This view is concerned primarily about getting things done from the perspective of educators. Thu, the authors argued, this perspective "lacks an analysis of adult education's relationship to the wider systems of power in society, this view of politics does not usually have an explicit social vision of whose interests should be served by adult education" (pp. 7-8).
3) "The political is structural": This view is not concerned about generic adult learners but learners who are oppressed by socially structured power. As a pitfall of this approach, the authors pointed out that it failed to provide concrete direction for micro practice. There exists a structural framework, but it lacks "applied, middle-range work" (Apple, 1988, p, 200, "Teachers and text", as cited p. 10). [My research, by probing this approach at work through participatory research practice, will contribute to suggesting such applied knowledge to address power relations in the context of adult education.]
Within these strands of the political, the authors finally proposed three propositions:
1) There is a reciprocal relationship between power and adult education: They argued, "power relationships both provide the grounds for action in adult education and are also always acted on by adult education" (p. 11). In other words, the power relations structuring our lives are played out in adult education; at the same time, adult education contributes to redistributing the power.
2) Adult education is a site of struggle for knowledge and power:
[Foley (1993, The neighborhood house: site of struggle, site of learning, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 14(1), 21-37, p. 20) wrote, "A major problem, though, with much supposedly critical adult education theory is that it is often very abstract; it has generally failed to develop analyses of adult learning in particular social contexts" (p. 20).]
[A thought: my research allows looking at adult learning at a micro level.]
The authors empathized that the struggle for knowledge and power define the politics of adult education and stated that this standpoint recognizes multiple interests at stake in adult education activity and requires negotiations of these conflicts, which leads to the question,"who benefit?"
3) All adult educators are social activists in practice (regardless of his or her particular perspective on society). In this light, the authors refuted adult educators as neutral knowledge facilitator, but knowledge-power brokers, who constantly question who (should) benefit from this education.
/// epilogue
The authors took the stance that adult education is a critical site for the struggle of knowledge and power, yet noted the limit of the current research after compiling the empirical studies:
"We share, however, a continuing concern that our actual practices in distributing knowledge, reshaping structures, and changing who benefits remain idiosyncratic and undeveloped" (pp. 268-69)
[Can this limitation overcome through participatory research as a form of adult education?]
Preface (xv-xxi)
The authors pointed out that the literature of adult education lacked an examination of power relations manifested in adult education, although adults became more engaged in learning activity and the issues of knowledge and power are pervasive. Within this context, they ask, "who benefits from and who should benefit from the programs, practices, and policies of adult education?" (p. xv)
The authors empathized that adult education is concerned not only about knowledge distribution but also social, cultural, and economic power, which they called 'material effects' (p. 2). Holding this position, they reviewed three different conceptions of the political in adult education practice:
1) "The political is personal" (articulated by Freire's partner, Knowles's andragogue, Mezirow's emancipatory educator, Daloz's mentor, Belenky's mid-wife, and Brookfield's skillful teacher): the authors critiqued this learner-centered view romanticizes learners. In this view, they argued, "the highest professional and moral principle for adult educators, then, to involve learners in identifying their needs" (p. 5). They further described:
"Key metaphors are those of building on the experience of these potential adult learners; hearing their "voice", which has often been silenced; or giving them access to learning opportunities that historically have been denied" (p. 5)
The authors argued that lack of social structural reference in this view only addressed universal purposes and failed to approach the political in the context of adult education.
2) "The political is practical": This view is concerned primarily about getting things done from the perspective of educators. Thu, the authors argued, this perspective "lacks an analysis of adult education's relationship to the wider systems of power in society, this view of politics does not usually have an explicit social vision of whose interests should be served by adult education" (pp. 7-8).
3) "The political is structural": This view is not concerned about generic adult learners but learners who are oppressed by socially structured power. As a pitfall of this approach, the authors pointed out that it failed to provide concrete direction for micro practice. There exists a structural framework, but it lacks "applied, middle-range work" (Apple, 1988, p, 200, "Teachers and text", as cited p. 10). [My research, by probing this approach at work through participatory research practice, will contribute to suggesting such applied knowledge to address power relations in the context of adult education.]
Within these strands of the political, the authors finally proposed three propositions:
1) There is a reciprocal relationship between power and adult education: They argued, "power relationships both provide the grounds for action in adult education and are also always acted on by adult education" (p. 11). In other words, the power relations structuring our lives are played out in adult education; at the same time, adult education contributes to redistributing the power.
2) Adult education is a site of struggle for knowledge and power:
[Foley (1993, The neighborhood house: site of struggle, site of learning, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 14(1), 21-37, p. 20) wrote, "A major problem, though, with much supposedly critical adult education theory is that it is often very abstract; it has generally failed to develop analyses of adult learning in particular social contexts" (p. 20).]
[A thought: my research allows looking at adult learning at a micro level.]
The authors empathized that the struggle for knowledge and power define the politics of adult education and stated that this standpoint recognizes multiple interests at stake in adult education activity and requires negotiations of these conflicts, which leads to the question,"who benefit?"
3) All adult educators are social activists in practice (regardless of his or her particular perspective on society). In this light, the authors refuted adult educators as neutral knowledge facilitator, but knowledge-power brokers, who constantly question who (should) benefit from this education.
/// epilogue
The authors took the stance that adult education is a critical site for the struggle of knowledge and power, yet noted the limit of the current research after compiling the empirical studies:
"We share, however, a continuing concern that our actual practices in distributing knowledge, reshaping structures, and changing who benefits remain idiosyncratic and undeveloped" (pp. 268-69)
[Can this limitation overcome through participatory research as a form of adult education?]
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Radical heroes
: Gramsci, Freire and the politics of adult education. Coben, Diana. (1998). New York and London: Garland publishing.
Forward (pp. vii-x, Joe Kincheloe)
Kincheloe stated that radical adult education focus on pedagogical intervention to develop practical forms of resistance to escape constraints of hegemonic power placed in people's lives. From his stance, therefore, adult educators are "facilitators of empowerment" (p. x).
Radical heroes in an age of uncertainty (pp. 3-8)
Criticizing the theoretical weakness of adult education, Coben pointed out as its reasons that the widespread assumption that education has to do with children and young people resulted in a low research profile and even in that research, most focused on political theory; in addition, the education of adults has dealt with practice in a field and thus theory has been placed in a back seat.
Against this background, Coben read Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freire to theorize adult education in the political context. Specifically, she examines Gramsci's educative concept of politics and Freire's political concept of education liberating the oppressed.
Antonio Gramsci: politics as educative (pp. 9-52)
Coben explored Gramci's educative concept of politics focusing on "hegemony" and "intellectuals". (Then, education)
Although Gramsci was not the first Marxist to use the term hegemony and the precise meaning is contested, Coben agreed that "Gramsci's concept of hegemony is a major contribution to Marxist theory and key to an understanding of his educative conception of politics" (13-14). His concept of hegemony is a way of a state's ruling and comprises the "'spontaneous' consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group" (SPN:12, as cited on the page 15). Important to this concept, Coben noted, is that the state maintains its hegemony by presenting dominant class interests as universal:
It is true that the state is seen as the organ of one particular class, . . . But the development and expansion of the particular group are conceived of, and presented, as being the motor force of a universal expansion, of a development of all the 'national' energies. In other words, the dominant group is coordinated concretely with the general interests of the subordinate groups, . . . (SPN:183)
Coben stressed Gramsci's attention to the state's ethical role in education as a means of maintaining hegemony. Gramsci put it, "Every state is ethical in as much as one of its most important functions is to raise the great mass of the population to a particular cultural and moral level . . ." (SPN: 258).
This particular level of achievement corresponds to the productive force and thus to the interests of the ruling classes, emphasized Coben.[Think about NCLB, the achivement is for what?] For Gramsci, therefore, education interweaves with the maintenance of hegemony. He put:
Every relationship of 'hegemony' is necessarily an educational relationship and occurs not only within a nation, between the various forces that comprise it, but in the entire international and world filed, between complexes of national and continental civilizations (FSPN:157, cited on the page 17)
Putting forward the notion that "all men are intellectuals" (SPN:9) as his theory of the intellectuals, Gramsci pointed out that their intellectual function should be developed through experience and education, noted Coben. Here rejected is the idea that intellectuals are independent of class and social context. Instead, Gramsci conceptualized organic intellectuals as opposed to traditional. Organic intellectuals are rooted in their class and perform an educational role to organize the class hegemony over society, whereas traditional intellectuals are intellectuals of the ruling class. Gramsci stressed that despite the difficulty of producing working-class organic intellectuals, the creation of such intellectuals was key to social revolution.
[Reading this passage, I think of the notion of elite professors OP students mentioned. Here the elites are far from the students' class, yet the instructors are seen as elite intellectuals, which can be categorized as traditional intellectuals according to Gramsci, although the two concepts, traditional and organic, are not mutually exclusive in Gramsci (Quintin, 1980; Coben, as cited on 19.)]
p. 22
Coben sharply pointed out that for Gramsci, the organization of hegemony of a subjugated class was key to opposing the ideological structure of a dominant class. The process of organizing the hegemony suggests Gramsci's idea of adult education. One of the activities that Gramsci empathized for the organization was a forming cultural group through journalism. This cultural group "aims to spread an integral conception of the world through various journalistic activities" (SCW: 430, as cited 23-24). Defining this type of journalism as "integral" one, Gramsci elaborated:
[Integral journalism is] one that seeks not only to satisfy all the needs (of a given category) of its public, but also to create and develop these needs, to arouse its public and progressively enlarge it. (SCW: 408, as cited on 23)
In his term, culture means "thinking well, whatever one thinks, and therefore acting well, whatever one does" (SCW:25). Here, culture means praxis, informed action (Freire, Pedagogy of the oppressed). More clearly, he wrote, "Study and culture for us are none other than the theoretical consciousness of our immediate and supreme goals, and the way in which we will succeed in translating them into action" (FSPN: xxxiii, cited 33).
For Gramsci, education is organizing culture and this organized culture becomes hegemonic. He summarized the tasks of cultural organizations:
"Its task is to offer a forum for a through and popular discussion of the economic and moral problems which life brings or will bring to the attention of the proletariat" (SCW: 23, cited 32)
His criticism on philanthropic institutions for adult education further illuminates his perspective on adult education:
[We need] the detailed work of discussing and investigating problems, work in which everybody participates, to which everybody contributes, in which everybody is both master and disciple" (SCW: 25, cited 34)
This perspective also suggests that the process of education is similar to journalism.
Coben concludes Gramsci's perspective on education:
"The education of adults, broadly conceived in Gramscian terms, is a means through which revolutionary organic intellectuals may be developed and equipped to undertake the crucial, painstaking work of organizing revolutionary hegemony" (p. 50).
//////
FSPN: Further selections from the Prison Notebooks/Antonio Gramsci, edited and translated by D. Boothman. Mineapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press (1995)
SPN: Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart (1971)
SCW: Selections from cultural writings. edited by D. Forgas and G. Nowell Smith, translated by W. Boelhouwer. London: Lawrence and Wishart. 1985
///
Paulo Friere: Education as Political (53-114)
His ideas of adult education are well explored in two articles, "The adult literacy process as cultural action for freedom" and "Cultural action and consicentization" published by Harvard Educational Review (1970) and later as a book titled Cultural Action for Freedom (Harvard University Press, 1970).
Coben noted that for Freire, conscientization is the aim of education and the concepts of praxis and dialogue are its two principles. Freire wrote, "Consicentization represents the development of the awakening of critical awareness" (EPF: 19). He wrote that typically poor people are concerned only with survival and fall prey to magical explanations because they do not understand true causality (EPT). He argued that this tendency is characteristic of people trapped in the "culture of silence", which Coben explains, "unable to discover and articulate their view of the world and therefore unable to act to change it" (p. 73). For Freire, the goal of conscientization is characterized by "the depth in the interpretation of problems; by the substitution of causal principles for magical explanations; by the testing of one's "findings" and by openness to revision..."(EPF:18) In fact, this is what researchers try to do. Thereby, Freire suggested that concientization, the aim of education, should enable individuals to undertake these perspectives of doing research in their everyday life. For Freire, in other words, the conscientization is the process of interrogation and dialogical forms of life (EPF:18, as cited 75).
Limitations of Freire's concept of oppression, in particular, from the feminist perspective, Coben argued:
"Lacking an understanding of power, his model of oppression is just too simple and indiscriminate to accommodate the multifaceted and contradictory nature of differential power relationships in terms of gender, class or any other social category" (p. 97)
Coben takes a critical stance on Frerie's pedagogical process, criticizing the divisional pedagogical relationship: "the learner is constructed at the outset as passive, silent, ignorant, unaware, inexperienced, possibly fearful but acquiescent. By contrast, from the outset the educator is active, in control, free, aware, experienced, wise, fearless and self-sacrificing" (112-113). Further, Coben described this relationship as a sexualized one, the educator cast as the male lover and the learner as the female virginal beloved. This interpretation led her to the following conclusion of the concept of conscientization:
"This feminization and, to an extent, also, infantilization of the learner is the nub of the inequality at the heart of the Freirian pedagogical relationship. Conscientization, which Freire conceives as an act of love, is revealed as at best a consensual but unequal coupling, at worst an invasion, a rape" (p. 113). [ I would argue that participatory research should overcome this dichotomy by achieving mutual goals through research. Researchers/Facilitators are not an educator. This situation can lead to another form, more liberating, less assumptive, of adult education.]
Criticizing his universalist concept of oppression devoid of consistent class analysis as well as patriarchal leardership for revolution, Coben raised an essential question: "It is not enough to say that political leaders, or educators, must commit class suicide and devote their lives to the people. Without a clear political framework such action is a sacrifice, but to what end?" (p. 113)
///
EPF: Education: the practice of freedom, Writers and Readers, 1976.
CAF: Cultural action for freedom, Penguin, 1972.
///
Gramsci and Freire: apologias, critiques and interpretations (pp. 148-202)
I also would argue whether the literacy program that Freire advocated systematically leads to conscientization, self-reflection and criticality. Brian Street (CHECK OUT Literacy Theory and Practices (1984) Cambridge University Press.) Criticizing the "great divide" between literacy and illiteracy, he argued that self-reflection and critical thought were seen in nonliterate societies, undermining Freire's assmuption of literacy as a ground base for critical enlightenment (cited p 154).
Quoting Kidd and Kumar (1981) and Kidd and Byram (1982), Coben cautioned pseudo-Freirian adult education, which substitutes a concern with poverty with a liberatory concern with oppression, which corresponds to the argument that M.D. James (1990, Demystifying literacy: reading, writing, and the struggle for liberation, Convergence, 23(1), 14-26) made.
Coben noted the link between participatory research and adult education, quoting Ted Jackson (1981, Convergence, The influence of Gramsci on Adult Eduction, Convergence, 14(3), 81-6). Here, tracing participatory research around the world, he interpreted participatory research as an attempt to apply Gramsci's work to the field of adult education.
Coben read Peter Mayo's (1994, Synthesizing Gramsci and Freire: possibilities for a theory of radical adult education, Int'l journal of lifelong education, 13(2), 125-48) analysis of Gramsci and Freire as a foundation for a radical theory of adult education.
Again, Coben took on critical stance on Freire, arguing:
Freire's vision of the oppressed as humanized (civilized? redeemed?) through a process of conscinetization initiated and controlled by a born again leader/educator, motivated by love, may be inspirational for those who identify with the educator/leader/lover, but what of the other, the oppressed, who has not sought--any may not want--the educator's love or leadership?
Gramsci and Freire: Radical Heroes? (203-223)
Finally, Coben asked whether we need heros for adult education for social change and urged us to go beyond "hero worship" (p. 222) toward a politics of adult education engaging with purpose, process and content within the context of social change. In this light, she suggests that raising intellectuals "to practice their capacity for self-reflection" (p. 222) is a more sound purpose of educational activity in contrast with revolutionary commitment.
Forward (pp. vii-x, Joe Kincheloe)
Kincheloe stated that radical adult education focus on pedagogical intervention to develop practical forms of resistance to escape constraints of hegemonic power placed in people's lives. From his stance, therefore, adult educators are "facilitators of empowerment" (p. x).
Radical heroes in an age of uncertainty (pp. 3-8)
Criticizing the theoretical weakness of adult education, Coben pointed out as its reasons that the widespread assumption that education has to do with children and young people resulted in a low research profile and even in that research, most focused on political theory; in addition, the education of adults has dealt with practice in a field and thus theory has been placed in a back seat.
Against this background, Coben read Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freire to theorize adult education in the political context. Specifically, she examines Gramsci's educative concept of politics and Freire's political concept of education liberating the oppressed.
Antonio Gramsci: politics as educative (pp. 9-52)
Coben explored Gramci's educative concept of politics focusing on "hegemony" and "intellectuals". (Then, education)
Although Gramsci was not the first Marxist to use the term hegemony and the precise meaning is contested, Coben agreed that "Gramsci's concept of hegemony is a major contribution to Marxist theory and key to an understanding of his educative conception of politics" (13-14). His concept of hegemony is a way of a state's ruling and comprises the "'spontaneous' consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group" (SPN:12, as cited on the page 15). Important to this concept, Coben noted, is that the state maintains its hegemony by presenting dominant class interests as universal:
It is true that the state is seen as the organ of one particular class, . . . But the development and expansion of the particular group are conceived of, and presented, as being the motor force of a universal expansion, of a development of all the 'national' energies. In other words, the dominant group is coordinated concretely with the general interests of the subordinate groups, . . . (SPN:183)
Coben stressed Gramsci's attention to the state's ethical role in education as a means of maintaining hegemony. Gramsci put it, "Every state is ethical in as much as one of its most important functions is to raise the great mass of the population to a particular cultural and moral level . . ." (SPN: 258).
This particular level of achievement corresponds to the productive force and thus to the interests of the ruling classes, emphasized Coben.[Think about NCLB, the achivement is for what?] For Gramsci, therefore, education interweaves with the maintenance of hegemony. He put:
Every relationship of 'hegemony' is necessarily an educational relationship and occurs not only within a nation, between the various forces that comprise it, but in the entire international and world filed, between complexes of national and continental civilizations (FSPN:157, cited on the page 17)
Putting forward the notion that "all men are intellectuals" (SPN:9) as his theory of the intellectuals, Gramsci pointed out that their intellectual function should be developed through experience and education, noted Coben. Here rejected is the idea that intellectuals are independent of class and social context. Instead, Gramsci conceptualized organic intellectuals as opposed to traditional. Organic intellectuals are rooted in their class and perform an educational role to organize the class hegemony over society, whereas traditional intellectuals are intellectuals of the ruling class. Gramsci stressed that despite the difficulty of producing working-class organic intellectuals, the creation of such intellectuals was key to social revolution.
[Reading this passage, I think of the notion of elite professors OP students mentioned. Here the elites are far from the students' class, yet the instructors are seen as elite intellectuals, which can be categorized as traditional intellectuals according to Gramsci, although the two concepts, traditional and organic, are not mutually exclusive in Gramsci (Quintin, 1980; Coben, as cited on 19.)]
p. 22
Coben sharply pointed out that for Gramsci, the organization of hegemony of a subjugated class was key to opposing the ideological structure of a dominant class. The process of organizing the hegemony suggests Gramsci's idea of adult education. One of the activities that Gramsci empathized for the organization was a forming cultural group through journalism. This cultural group "aims to spread an integral conception of the world through various journalistic activities" (SCW: 430, as cited 23-24). Defining this type of journalism as "integral" one, Gramsci elaborated:
[Integral journalism is] one that seeks not only to satisfy all the needs (of a given category) of its public, but also to create and develop these needs, to arouse its public and progressively enlarge it. (SCW: 408, as cited on 23)
In his term, culture means "thinking well, whatever one thinks, and therefore acting well, whatever one does" (SCW:25). Here, culture means praxis, informed action (Freire, Pedagogy of the oppressed). More clearly, he wrote, "Study and culture for us are none other than the theoretical consciousness of our immediate and supreme goals, and the way in which we will succeed in translating them into action" (FSPN: xxxiii, cited 33).
For Gramsci, education is organizing culture and this organized culture becomes hegemonic. He summarized the tasks of cultural organizations:
"Its task is to offer a forum for a through and popular discussion of the economic and moral problems which life brings or will bring to the attention of the proletariat" (SCW: 23, cited 32)
His criticism on philanthropic institutions for adult education further illuminates his perspective on adult education:
[We need] the detailed work of discussing and investigating problems, work in which everybody participates, to which everybody contributes, in which everybody is both master and disciple" (SCW: 25, cited 34)
This perspective also suggests that the process of education is similar to journalism.
Coben concludes Gramsci's perspective on education:
"The education of adults, broadly conceived in Gramscian terms, is a means through which revolutionary organic intellectuals may be developed and equipped to undertake the crucial, painstaking work of organizing revolutionary hegemony" (p. 50).
//////
FSPN: Further selections from the Prison Notebooks/Antonio Gramsci, edited and translated by D. Boothman. Mineapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press (1995)
SPN: Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. London: Lawrence and Wishart (1971)
SCW: Selections from cultural writings. edited by D. Forgas and G. Nowell Smith, translated by W. Boelhouwer. London: Lawrence and Wishart. 1985
///
Paulo Friere: Education as Political (53-114)
His ideas of adult education are well explored in two articles, "The adult literacy process as cultural action for freedom" and "Cultural action and consicentization" published by Harvard Educational Review (1970) and later as a book titled Cultural Action for Freedom (Harvard University Press, 1970).
Coben noted that for Freire, conscientization is the aim of education and the concepts of praxis and dialogue are its two principles. Freire wrote, "Consicentization represents the development of the awakening of critical awareness" (EPF: 19). He wrote that typically poor people are concerned only with survival and fall prey to magical explanations because they do not understand true causality (EPT). He argued that this tendency is characteristic of people trapped in the "culture of silence", which Coben explains, "unable to discover and articulate their view of the world and therefore unable to act to change it" (p. 73). For Freire, the goal of conscientization is characterized by "the depth in the interpretation of problems; by the substitution of causal principles for magical explanations; by the testing of one's "findings" and by openness to revision..."(EPF:18) In fact, this is what researchers try to do. Thereby, Freire suggested that concientization, the aim of education, should enable individuals to undertake these perspectives of doing research in their everyday life. For Freire, in other words, the conscientization is the process of interrogation and dialogical forms of life (EPF:18, as cited 75).
Limitations of Freire's concept of oppression, in particular, from the feminist perspective, Coben argued:
"Lacking an understanding of power, his model of oppression is just too simple and indiscriminate to accommodate the multifaceted and contradictory nature of differential power relationships in terms of gender, class or any other social category" (p. 97)
Coben takes a critical stance on Frerie's pedagogical process, criticizing the divisional pedagogical relationship: "the learner is constructed at the outset as passive, silent, ignorant, unaware, inexperienced, possibly fearful but acquiescent. By contrast, from the outset the educator is active, in control, free, aware, experienced, wise, fearless and self-sacrificing" (112-113). Further, Coben described this relationship as a sexualized one, the educator cast as the male lover and the learner as the female virginal beloved. This interpretation led her to the following conclusion of the concept of conscientization:
"This feminization and, to an extent, also, infantilization of the learner is the nub of the inequality at the heart of the Freirian pedagogical relationship. Conscientization, which Freire conceives as an act of love, is revealed as at best a consensual but unequal coupling, at worst an invasion, a rape" (p. 113). [ I would argue that participatory research should overcome this dichotomy by achieving mutual goals through research. Researchers/Facilitators are not an educator. This situation can lead to another form, more liberating, less assumptive, of adult education.]
Criticizing his universalist concept of oppression devoid of consistent class analysis as well as patriarchal leardership for revolution, Coben raised an essential question: "It is not enough to say that political leaders, or educators, must commit class suicide and devote their lives to the people. Without a clear political framework such action is a sacrifice, but to what end?" (p. 113)
///
EPF: Education: the practice of freedom, Writers and Readers, 1976.
CAF: Cultural action for freedom, Penguin, 1972.
///
Gramsci and Freire: apologias, critiques and interpretations (pp. 148-202)
I also would argue whether the literacy program that Freire advocated systematically leads to conscientization, self-reflection and criticality. Brian Street (CHECK OUT Literacy Theory and Practices (1984) Cambridge University Press.) Criticizing the "great divide" between literacy and illiteracy, he argued that self-reflection and critical thought were seen in nonliterate societies, undermining Freire's assmuption of literacy as a ground base for critical enlightenment (cited p 154).
Quoting Kidd and Kumar (1981) and Kidd and Byram (1982), Coben cautioned pseudo-Freirian adult education, which substitutes a concern with poverty with a liberatory concern with oppression, which corresponds to the argument that M.D. James (1990, Demystifying literacy: reading, writing, and the struggle for liberation, Convergence, 23(1), 14-26) made.
Coben noted the link between participatory research and adult education, quoting Ted Jackson (1981, Convergence, The influence of Gramsci on Adult Eduction, Convergence, 14(3), 81-6). Here, tracing participatory research around the world, he interpreted participatory research as an attempt to apply Gramsci's work to the field of adult education.
Coben read Peter Mayo's (1994, Synthesizing Gramsci and Freire: possibilities for a theory of radical adult education, Int'l journal of lifelong education, 13(2), 125-48) analysis of Gramsci and Freire as a foundation for a radical theory of adult education.
Again, Coben took on critical stance on Freire, arguing:
Freire's vision of the oppressed as humanized (civilized? redeemed?) through a process of conscinetization initiated and controlled by a born again leader/educator, motivated by love, may be inspirational for those who identify with the educator/leader/lover, but what of the other, the oppressed, who has not sought--any may not want--the educator's love or leadership?
Gramsci and Freire: Radical Heroes? (203-223)
Finally, Coben asked whether we need heros for adult education for social change and urged us to go beyond "hero worship" (p. 222) toward a politics of adult education engaging with purpose, process and content within the context of social change. In this light, she suggests that raising intellectuals "to practice their capacity for self-reflection" (p. 222) is a more sound purpose of educational activity in contrast with revolutionary commitment.
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